The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 50

THE A LIFETIME 8 MIAMI-DADE Officials want to fill seats faster Officials from various community councils met to discuss the difficult task of filling open seats, They want to propose a resolution that gives commissioners a 30-day deadline in order to appoint someone to the council. BY YUDY PINEIRO Leaders of various MiamiDade County community councils discussed ways to ease the neighborhood zoning boards' biggest problem: filling vacancies. Finding people interested in taking on the public role and those with the time to do it is hard enough, without the added task of dealing with county commissioners to appoint someone, they said. "It can be a cumbersome process," said Patricia Wade, EXPERIENCE THIS. Doze off in a hammock.

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ExperienceDestinations.com EXPERIENCE Publahed by 14257-04 chairwoman of the Redland Community Council, which has been plagued by absenteeism. Also present at the meeting Friday at county hall in downtown Miami: Biscayne Shores Community Council chairman Mike Brescher; Westchester Community Council chairman Carlos A. Manrique; Fisher Island's Dr. Sydney J. Stern; North Central's Vernell Everett; and filling in for West Kendall Community Council member Tom J.

Schramm was chairman Patrick Fiore. PALMETTO BAY Officer retires after 25 years FROM 3 closer to family. Over the years, Branch has had to overcome the loss of three sisters to the same hereditary disease: sickle cell anemia. The last sister passed away in 2004. "The toughest part was seeing them in pain," he said.

"I would just get sick to my stomach seeing them hurt." Branch said he is looking forward to his move, which will put him closer to his mother and another sister. He's planning to travel and maybe even teach physical education. But he said he will miss the employees and officials of Palmetto Bay as well as the residents. "One woman I helped on a call came here and baked us cookies. You don't see a lot of things like that." After the county publishes an advertisement about the opening, the council will be able to interview and endorse nominees, but only the commissioner, who oversees the district, has the authority to make the appointment.

Wade and others argued that commissioners sometimes sit on qualified applications for too long. Meanwhile, meetings are postponed because councils cannot convene without a quorum of at least four. Manrique, of the Westchester Community Council, said he did not have the same gripes with Commissioner Javier Souto, who represents his district, but said he understood where others were coming from. Manrique then came up with a proposal: The resolution gives the commissioners a 30-day deadline to appoint someone once the council advises them of the vacancy. If the commissioner does not take action, the council could then proceed to make the appointment, as it did when community councils were first created in 1996 to decide zoning issues.

"This is a good compromise," Manrique said of his proposal. The resolution must be approved by all councils and would be drafted by the county. Lourdes Avalos, the community council liaison for the county's Team Metro operation, said she had not drafted the exact wording of the resolution yet. A few months ago, the leaders put forth a resolution before their council urging the County Commission to return the power to fill vacant seats to community councils but the resolution stalled amid council members who weren't ready to burn that bridge with commissioners. In late April, the Redland Community Council voted 3-2 against transfering the power back to the councils.

The West Kendall Community Council never voted on the resolution. CORAL GABLES Miami Jazz Film Festival marks 10th anniversary The 10th annual Miami Jazz Film Festival comes to Coral Gables next week. Fourteen documentaries are among the scheduled films to be shown. BY ELAINE DE VALLE Jazz will be seen as well as heard in Coral Gables next week. Fourteen documentaries, short features and vintage cartoons from the USA, United Kingdom, Spain and France will be shown Aug.

10-13 at the Bill Cosford Cinema at the University of Miami. It's the 10th annual Miami Jazz Film Festival, organized by 88.9 FM WDNA public radio. For $5 or $6 a pop, viewers can see the legendary Cuban pianist Bebo travel to Brazil, or hear vocalist Freddy Cole as he comes out of the shadow of his more famous brother, Nat King Cole. They can recall the legendary "Soul to Soul" concert in Ghana, where the likes of Les McCann, Ike and Tina Turner, Santana, Wilson Pickett, The Staple Singers and others were captured in a 1971 documentary that has since been remastered. WDNA spokeswoman Maggie says there is something for everyone even children, who can be introduced to jazz as well as Betty Boop through a Saturday afternoon free screening of vintage cartoons with music by Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway.

Seven of the featured documentaries are Florida premieres, beginning with the opening night film Music is My Life, Politics My Mistress the Story of Oscar Brown Jr. about the poet, jazz singer, stage actor, composer, radio and television host and senatorial candidate. And South Florida cannot have a jazz film festival without a good proportion of Cuban and Afro-Cuban. jazz. There's El Milagro de Candeal, which chronicles trip to Salvador de and the U.S.

Premiere of Habana Abierta Boomerang, which features the band formed by a new generation of Cuban musicians, now in Spain, who blend traditional Cuban sounds with pop, rock, jazz and blues. The closing festival film celebrates the bond between jazz and New Orleans in a film titled Make it Funky! by native Michael Murphy, narrated by Art Neville. The Miami Jazz Film Festival is an outreach activity of WDNA-FM (88.9) public radio and is supported by the City of Coral Gables, Tarpon Bend Raw Bar Grill, International Press of Miami, Midtown Video and others. A complete festival schedule of screening times is available at www.wdna.org and tickets $5 for members, $6 for nonmembers can be obtained online or by calling the station at 305-662-8889..